


Serpent Eating Its Own Tail

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Children, Courtly Love, Daughters, F/M, Gen, Letters, Parties, Poetry, Romance, Sons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-16
Updated: 2018-02-16
Packaged: 2019-03-19 11:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13703235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: It only took a letter to fill Shinko's eyes with tears.





	Serpent Eating Its Own Tail

**Author's Note:**

> I use Lian for Lianokami instead of Tammy's Liano because I much prefer the look and sound of Lian.

Serpent Eating Its Own Tail 

It only took a letter from Kalasin to make Shinko’s eyes swim with all the salt of a sea. The letter, scented with Carthaki cinnamon and laced with casual details of a firstborn son growing stronger with each sunrise, was reminder that Shinko had so far failed to give her husband a boy. She could see vivid as a rainbow the tart twist to Kalasin’s mouth as Roald read the descriptions of the trouble Binur wandered into now that he could walk and dreaded the mischief Lian might make once she took her first steps. Irrationally, the fact that her daughter was still crawling while Binur was walking made her feel inferior to her sister-in-law, though Binur was months older than Lian and should have been expected to roam the world on pudgy legs first, but reason wasn’t a salve for the stinging sense that Kalasin and her son were meeting every milestone before Shinko and her daughter. 

Burying her bitterness behind a smile because she was happy for her husband’s favorite sister even if she was sad for herself, she tilted her flowered fan to hide her face so that Roald couldn’t see the dark shadow of grief lurking behind the shining pearls of her teeth. 

“Firstborn sons are overrated.” Roald could read her as easily as he had Kalasin’s letter. He splayed his fingers over Shinko’s but didn’t try to tug down her fan. Even for him, that would be too great an intimacy, too sensitive a violation of her carefully guarded privacy and pride. 

“You are a firstborn son,” Shinko reminded him with a flick of her fan and an uplifted eyebrow.

“Indeed I am.” There was a wry note to Roald’s agreement. “That’s why I can speak with such authority on the matter, my dear.” 

“Your authority is rooted in your status as a firstborn son, which you claim yourself is an overrated position.” Shinko tapped Roald’s wrist with her fan, informing him that she could spot his circular reasoning from a league away in the fog. Still she took solace in a simple conversation with him that twirled in on itself with no true beginning or end. “Therefore, your logic is like a serpent spinning in on itself and eating its own tail.”

“So poetic.” Roald planted a teasing kiss on her cheek. “I marvel you don’t compose more verses with such a gift for imagery.”

“I would if we hosted more lantern-lit, poetry writing parties.” Shinko was serene as she hinted at her revenge. “Perhaps I will send out invitations to such an event today.” 

“I’ll start planning my excuses for avoiding the party like the Sweating Sickness now.” Roald smirked at her as she shut her fan with a snap.


End file.
